The answer of scholasticism and
Neo-Scholasticism is quite predictable: the philosophy of Aristotle, having deprived Plato's natural world of the two orders, created the sum of the order of the natural world, by rationally calculating it in the best possible way.
Surprisingly, many distinguished scholars, such as Jacques Maritain and John Finnis, do not admit it and foster the illusion that their political views are merely developments of Thomism or
neo-Scholasticism. They apparently have forgotten the political teaching of Thomas Aquinas, which is monarchist and hierarchical, as well as the fact that Christian theology over the last two hundred years has undergone a radical reversal in its attitudes toward liberalism, democracy, religious liberty, women's rights, war and peace, and international organizations.
Harries rejects Koyrd's radical position (and deviates a bit from Duhem's
neo-scholasticism) and turns rather to the theological and mystical speculations of Cusanus as the key and "conceptual link" between ancient ideas and modern science.
Academic theologians and church historians can, with hindsight, reconstruct the 19th and early 20th centuries as prologue to Vatican II--the liturgical, catechetical, biblical, ecumenical, and social-action movements; the growing critique of
neo-scholasticism; the yawning gulf between lived experience and inherited doctrine--but it came out of the blue, nonetheless.
It is Del Colle's contention that certain theological advances beyond traditional
neo-scholasticism were necessary for the construction of an orthodox Spirit-Christology.
(25) Two events during Pius IX's pontificate, however, boosted the restoration of
neo-Scholasticism. The first was the papally approved foundation in 1850 of the Jesuit periodical La Civilta Cattolica--against, it must be said, the wishes of Father General Roothaan.
There arose a new Roman school, an heir of
Neo-Scholasticism, whose influence predominated in the formation of the universal catechism, the new Code of Canon Law, and eventually in revisions of liturgical rites and translations.
Instead, it was the result of an intellectual tradition that drew upon the Enlightenment and Romanticism in response to
neo-Scholasticism, all with the help of William James's pragmatism.
At times, towards the end of the book, Dietrich's loses grasp of his usual historical sensitivity, especially when speaking of
neo-scholasticism and the manualist approaches; in those instances he leans too heavily on stock visions and does not sufficiently challenge himself with more deft historical versions of those movements.
However, the reader unfamiliar with terms from specialized theological or philosophical language such as 'scholasticism,' '
neo-scholasticism,' 'personalist phenomenology,' and 'realism' might find some difficulty appreciating Miller's insightful commentary since these terms are introduced without definitions.
His teaching at this time, however, was very much rooted in medieval theology and
neo-scholasticism. He married a Lutheran in a Catholic ceremony, but the birth of their first child in 1919, or rather their refusal to have him baptized as a Roman Catholic, signalled Heidegger's break with the Roman Church.
The book analyzes the attempts to develop a historicized version of the Catholic tradition from the Council of Trent to the Tubingen School, and from the French traditionalists (notably de Bonald and Lamennais) to the re-discovery of medieval philosophy, Ockham in particular, which came to be known as
Neo-Scholasticism. These are essentially attempts to reconcile the concept of a divine transcendence with the secularized transcendence called future, but they all labor under the predicament that the religious tradition itself "could be viewed historically" (p.
